Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions based on the passage:
Post-structuralism emerged in France in the late 1960s. The two figures most closely associated with this emergence are Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida (1930-2004). Barthes's work around this time began to shift in character, moving from a structuralist to a post-structuralist phase. The difference can be seen by comparing two accounts of the nature of the narrative by Barthes, one from each phase: namely, the essay "The Structural Analysis of Narrative" (first published in 1966) and The Pleasure of the Text (1973). The former is detailed, methodological, and forbiddingly technical, while the latter is really just a series of random comments on narrative, arranged alphabetically, thereby, of course, emphasizing the randomness of the material. Between these two works came the crucial essay 'The Death of the Author' (1968), which is the 'hinge' around which Barthes turns from structuralism to post-structuralism. In that essay, he announces the death of the author, which is a rhetorical way of asserting the independence of the literary text and its immunity to the possibility of being unified or limited by any notion of what the author might have intended, or 'crafted' into the work. Instead, the essay makes a declaration of radical textual independence: the work is not determined by intention or context. Rather, the text is free by its very nature of all such restraints.
Why is “The Death of the Author” seen as the turning point in Barthes’s intellectual journey?
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D
Explanation
The passage explicitly identifies the essay "The Death of the Author" as the "hinge" or turning point between Barthes's structuralist and post-structuralist phases for the following reasons:
Radical Independence: The essay asserts that a literary text is independent and immune to being limited by the author's original intentions.
Freedom from Restraints: It declares that a work is not determined by its creator's context or "craft," but is instead "free by its very nature of all such restraints."